Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I own nothing but David Beckham's right foot...wait,...no I don't...but see love actually anyway

I'll build a Stairway to Paradise
With a new Step ev'ry day.
I'll build a Stairway to Paradise,
With a new Step ev'ry day.
I'm going to get there at any price;

Stand aside, I'm on my way!

- From the "An American in Paris" soundtrack

(Has anyone ever actually heard this song? I was searching for lyrics and it fit but I've never heard it)

ilive4cake00: You have NO idea how much it means to me that my first review came from you. As my friend put it so wonderfully I shall quote her, "it's like we are her groupies or something" ::sings:: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...

Tru Lys: Thank you! And thanks for finding the mistakes but I get so nervous every time I upload things that I think I'm just going to leave it. Also, thank-you for the beta-ing offer but I already have to great betas. Well, temporarily I only have one because she promised Gd that if she got a callback for a play she wouldn't read fics for a month but she also threatened never to talk to me again if I replace her...I don't think she can stay away anyway

Ronscutie: Hehe nice Britishness

Nattieb: Thanks & I hope you like the rest too!

Tangerine Dream: Awww I feel so special. How weird would it be to have an actual recurring dream about fruit though?

Special announcement for LeNoodleGirl, my very offended friend (why does that sound so weird...offended friend....anyway...) who introduced me to the world of Harry Potter and is a wonderful beta and who I love even though she wants me to cast poor Ron aside

"Please...tell...me....we...are...almost...there..." Harry said, wheezing as they were led up yet another flight of stairs.

"Some people have no patience," Leasle tutted.

Shane was siding with Harry though, "Easy for you to say, not all of us live on stairmasters."

"Hey, you gotta give Muggles credit for some things; the stairmaster is definitely one of their better inventions. Hermione, are you okay?"

She had been silent the entire excruciating walk, not even looking at any of them, especially Harry. She tried to take a fast glance in his direction without anyone noticing, but failed. Leasle motioned for her to walk ahead and then put her arm around Hermione's shoulders. "If there's anything you want to talk about, I'm more than a bodyguard, 'kay?" Hermione wanted someone to talk to more than anything else, well no, what she wanted more than anything else was for things to go back to the way they were, but having someone to help her sort out her feelings would be the next best thing. Too bad she thinks we've been engaged and madly in love for ages Hermione thought to herself. Instead of saying what she truly felt she settled for, "Oh no, I'm fine it's just a lot to process in one day. Finally marrying Harry, (Why did my stomach just flutter?! That isn't supposed to happen; he's my best friend, that's it) coming here, you know..." Leasle sensed there was more to it than Hermione was admitting, but she only nodded her head and slowed her pace, waiting for the guys to catch up.

Fifteen minutes and several pulled muscles later, they arrived in front of a door painted a peculiar shade of peach, the kind that schools and apartment buildings built in the fifties tended to use.

"This is where the Ministry is hiding us?" Harry asked, half expecting it to be one of Shane and Leasle's jokes, "In a flat?"

"Looks can be deceiving," Shane said, opening the door to reveal...a regular old flat.

Harry gave him a look of doubt.

"Very deceiving."

The flat was small, a studio divided in half by a wooden screen and deep red curtains serving as doors. They were all standing in the kitchen, if you could call it that. There was a minifridge, a hotplate and about 3 cubic feet of space.

"The larger the space, the more difficult it is to sustain ourselves up here so we had to cut back. We'll try to go out and get some food at night, but we'd have to go in owl form so don't be expecting much," Leasle informed the newlyweds.

"Up wh...oooh," Hermione said, understanding.

Harry however, was too busy standing in front of the open minifridge, trying to cool down from the climb to care what she had figured out this time. He felt as though he was approaching 98.6° again when Hermione practically slammed the door of it shut in his face.

"It takes magic to keep that fridge cold and the less magic we use up here, the safer it is."

"What kind of logic is that? It's the magic that protects us." Realizing how unlikely it was that Hermione was wrong, he added, "Isn't it?"

"Well if I'm not mistaken, we are in..." she glanced over to Shawn and Leasle to see if they would mind terribly if she revealed to Harry where they were, "Can't I just tell him? Even Harry wouldn't be foolish enough to leave at a time like this. Besides, he'd have some job trying to get up and down those stairs," she continued without really waiting for a reply from either of the two, "I believe that we must be in some American city. The reason this looks so much like a regular flat is because it is. The American equivalent of the Ministry of Magic decided about 80 years ago that the best way to hide wizard settlements from muggles would be to build a parallel realm physically above certain muggle cities. The structures over the Line of Caulfield as it was called after the President of the Wizards Council, a very sexist name if you ask me, would be very similar to the ones in the normal realm below, but simplified versions, for it required powerful magic to sustain them. Only certain specific points would allow entry to the realm, this apparently being one of them. A muggle could be flying through this space right now, but we wouldn't know it because they didn't enter the realm from one of the points. Of course, the limited construction that could occur didn't suit the needs of the Council and it was soon put out of use and forgotten. Most Americans don't even know it existed."

Harry gaped at the walking encyclopedia in front of him.

"What? I read so many books on English wizardry I thought American Wizard by Jenny Clavitz would be interesting."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Well it's been a full day, I'm turning in," Leasle said, opening the curtain to the right-hand section of the divided room to reveal a nightstand and two twin size beds. Shane followed, stifling a yawn.

"We should probably head in too," Hermione said to Harry. They both tried to play it cool. It will be just like when we stayed at Ron' s all those times they kept telling themselves. Just like it except...no...no excepts...

Hermione pulled back the curtain, hoping that Harry didn't notice her hand shake. The last thing she needed right now was to be sleeping in the same room as him...
"Harry...Harry...there's only one bed..." she said shakily.

For once, Harry had known something that Hermione didn't. "Well what did you expect? Married people tend to sleep in the same bed. Except for when Dudley watched sitcoms from the 50s. That always puzzled me..."

"Yea, of course, sure," Hermione mumbled. She set her backpack on the bed. "Can you step out for a minute? I need to change."

"Some honeymoon," Harry said jokingly as he left.

"Okay," Hermione called to him when she had finished. He reappeared in the small room wearing only bright orange Chudley Cannon boxers that Ginny had convinced Ron to buy him as a joke for Christmas last year. He still remembered laughing hysterically as Ginny blushed and Ron made his sexual preferences explicitly clear. It was just under a year ago but it seemed like ages.

Hermione couldn't stop her eyes from roaming down. In all fairness, they were a very bright orange...

"You're going to be freezing in those," she managed.

"I know, but I've never been all that good with the packing thing, you'd think boarding school woulda helped that. I forgot to bring anything else to sleep in." He casually plopped down on the bed, as if he slept with his best friend who happened to be female and now his wife wearing orange boxers every day.

Hermione signed and crawled in as well; very glad she was wearing sweatpants but wishing she hadn't chosen just a white cami to wear on top.

"I know there is only so much they can do up here, but I think a fireplace was a horrible thing to leave out. It's freezing."

"I know," Harry said, and moved closer to her as he did so.

Just keep talking...

"My hands are like ice..."
"Here, lemme help," he slid his surprisingly warmer hands over her shoulders with every intention of warming her hands...

"Harry...those aren't my hands..."

"Mmmhmm"

I hope you understand
That green eyes
Yeah the spotlight shines upon you
And how could anybody deny you
I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter

...
And honey you should know
That I could never go on without you
Green eyes

- Coldplay

Whew that was a bit difficult for me, all the Harry/Hermione-ness (I love randomly adding –ness to stuff. It's terrible). Which, reminds me, I realized that under the summary it said "H/hr". What it was supposed to say was "R/hr...and then...H/hr...and then...R/hr...and then...you'll have to read and see", but it got cut off. Apologies for any confusion. I'm not exactly sure when I'll be able to post next because I'm not going to be home this coming weekend or the one after camping(yes, I am going out into the wilderness. Then again, I consider anything without a subway wilderness...but this is like cook meals on a fire wilderness) and then a busy weekend with a friend's birthday party & a dance, plus my own birthday! Yipeeeeeee! and during the week I have about 13424353654675677889879 tests because you know how teachers love to gang up on you and give you everything at once. I already wrote most of four though and it's pretty short, so I want to be able to get five up soon after I post four. I'm really excited about five though so I don't know, we shall see. This is a really long note full of information that nobody really cares about, so therefore I am done.

REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!